Posts Tagged ‘Chateau Suduiraut’

Just like buses when, finally, we get a 2014 Sauternes release it is followed by several more!

La Tour Blanche has reduced it’s price by nearly 15% on 2013 and by over 30% on the 2009 peak making it superb value. Doisy-Védrines has inched up on Doisy Daene but is still cheaper than last year when exchange rates are taken into account whilst Suduiraut has held prices as Denis Dubourdieu did.

All the prices for all the wines by the half case, single bottle or single half bottle can be found HERE

Last year many of you will have taken delivery of some 2011 Sauternes so we thought it would be a good idea to see how they are drinking now – superbly as it happens! I also report below on the vintage generally (it’s easy to forget the excellent 2011 Sauternes vintage after the fantastic 2009s and 2010s) and how a panel of UK wine experts found the wines when they were tasted last week at the annual Southwold tasting.

To help you find a particular wine that you may have bought we’ve filmed everything in alphabetical order this time – enjoy the videos! Bill Blatch

The tasting videos for the 2013 Sauternes are finally published below – we hope you enjoy them as much as we’ve enjoyed tasting the wines!

To help you locate any particular wine you are interested in there are five videos in alphabetical order. The first video covers the A-C chateaux and includes Domaine de l’Alliance, Ch d’Arche (starts at 1:15), Ch Bastor-Lamontagne (1:53), Ch Broustet (2:26), Ch Caillou (3:12), Clos Haut-Peyraguey (3:37) and Ch Coutet (4:47).

Ch Liot kicks off the next video followed by the wonderful Ch de Malle (1:23), Ch de Myrat (2:33), Ch Nairac (3:22), Ch Rabaud Promis (4:41) and Ch Raymond-Lafon (5:29).

Finally, but by no means least we have a string of 1st Growth wines starting with Ch de Rayne Vigneau and then Ch Rieussec (1:08), Ch Sigalas-Rabaud (2:10), Ch Suduiraut (2:49) and Ch La Tour Blanche (4:01).

Finally, the remaining First Growth 2009 Sauternes including Rieussec, Suduiraut and Yquem! Does the Yquem shine – watch the video below to find out.

One thing is clear about this vintage – there is fantastic quality across all price brackets. The wines will bring great pleasure for many years to come but I suspect that pretty soon supplies of the best wines will begin to become a little scarce. For all the stock we hold just click on this link!

2011 Sauternes is without doubt a big success. And at the head of this we have some sensational First Growth wines.

For my thoughts on Coutet, Clos Haut-Peyraguey, de Fargues, Guiraud, Lafaurie-Peyraguey and Rabaud Promis click on the first video below. After that click on the second video for comments on Raymond Lafon, de Rayne Vigneau, Rieussec, Sigalas Rabaud, Suduiraut and La Tour Blanche. There is at least one sensational wine in each video! Enjoy! Bill Blatch

I never tire of tasting Sauternes, especially when it is from Suduiraut, one of my very favourites. Imagine my joy then when I was invited to taste no less than 33 vintages as part of Neal Martin’s epic investigation into the chateau and its wines. Neal managed to taste even more vintages going back to 1899 and has written at fascinating length (a stunning 70,000 words) about his experience at his Wine Journal (membership required).

Alternatively why not take a look at the videos below for a ‘Fly on the Wall’ peep of the tasting itself?

Many thanks indeed to Christian Seeley, Pierre Montégut and the staff of Chateau Suduiraut for hosting us. There is plenty of lively banter, discussion and disagreement within the videos but one thing we all agreed upon was that, taken as a whole, the tasting was amongst the most remarkable any of us had ever participated in – Suduiraut really is a class act performing at it’s very best!

Well it isn’t all over until the fat lady sings but most of the audience has left already! As I write the Medoc 1st Growths, the Super 2nds and the the top Right Bank chateaux are finally releasing their wines onto the market after what has been one of the most criticised and extraordinary En Primeur campaigns. It has been one of the longest campaigns ever with long lulls followed by intense spurts of activity, not to mention the record prices (for the red wines).

The ‘Embarrasingly Good Vintage that I wrote about in my 2010 Vintage Report has been followed by an ‘Embarrassingly Poor En Primeur Campaign’!

In Sauternes we only await the price for Chateau d’Yquem, which will probably follow those for the 1st Growths Reds.

Sauternes and Barsac have, yet again, suffered in the confusion! These are amongst the very best wines in the world (see Sauternes – the Best Bordeaux Wine) and yet they are selling for a fraction of the price of the top red wines (see Sauternes – Best Value in Bordeaux). Despite having the only reasonable pricing policy in Bordeaux the attention has been firmly on the red wines and Sauternes sales have been affected – the apathetic reaction to some of the red wine pricing seems to have rubbed off.

This is such a shame as the wines themselves deserve much, much better. 2010 in Sauternes, and especially Barsac, is utterly irresistible and gets better every time I taste it. I urge you to take another look at my 2010 Tasting Notes and if you’ve been put off buying reds this year, focus on Sauternes instead! All the prices are here:

Amidst the madness 2010 En Primeur it was a real pleasure to sit down with some of my Sauternais friends at Vinexpo and taste some great Sauternes alongside some Chinese food. Below is some video proof that I was there and, I think, appreciated, as are our efforts at Bordeaux Gold to promote their wines.

The Chan brothers, Tommy and André, of the Bordeaux Chinese Restaurant “Le Bonheur du Palais” made a dish for every wine:

There were a lot of Chinese-food experts there and the debate quickly became one of the challenge of food pairing in China because all the food is served at the same time. Tommy had put the spicier dishes with the younger wines, which was thought not necessarily any better.

Frankly, everything went with everything which actually makes it easier to serve Sauternes with Chinese food than other wines – a result! Bill Blatch

Following the Eurovision Song Contest (and popular demand) we couldn’t resist one more Top 40 Chart!

Taken into account are a host of new scores from France (Revue du Vin de France, Professor Bernard Burtschy, Jacques Dupont, Jacques Perrin & Antoon Laurent), Izak Litwar’s scores from Denmark and, to make things truly European, the scores from the Grand Jury Europeen founded by Francois Mauss.

For tasting notes and scores just click on the links or on the large blue box at the top right of your screen. Enjoy! Bill Blatch

1. L’Extravagant de Doisy Daene (-) – No changes across the top 5 wines but it was very close for No.1! RELEASED – £797(6 x halves)

Well the price this afternoon for Suduiraut has confirmed it for me. The chateau price is down 10% meaning that we can sell it for over £100 per case cheaper than the 2009! This is the best value of the vintage so far!

Compare this to Chateau Gazin which also opened this afternoon and which went up by around 7% to almost the same price ex-chateau and it is clear where the most sensible pricing is happening – Sauternes! Good though Gazin is I couldn’t possibly recommend to anyone purchasing a 93-95 point 2010 Pomerol over the majesty that is the 94-96 point 2010 Suduiraut! Bill Blatch